A painter from the early 1900’s I’d not been aware of before:: Oscar Bluemner
"The son and grandson of architects, Bluemner was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1867, and was encouraged to follow in his family’s trade.
He showed early promise as an artist as well, and his first one-man show of portraits was held at the Berlin Latin School in 1886. In 1892 he won a medal at the Royal Academy of Design in Berlin where he studied painting and architecture. Dissatisfied with the restrictive aesthetic policies of Emperor Wilhelm II’s government, Bluemner left for America that same year.
Bluemner arrived in New York, then moved on to Chicago
in 1893, hoping to gain architectural commissions at the World’s Columbian Exposition.
He designed prefabricated units for the Exposition and freelanced as a draftsman.
(I wonder if he encountered Adler and Louis Sullivan at that time!?)
He returned to New York in 1901, and the following year he won a commission for the Bronx Borough Courthouse that his partner finagled away using Bluemner’s design.
Although Bluemner sued and eventually won the lawsuit,
the experience permanently turned him away from architecture.
Between 1908 and 1910, Bluemner began painting in earnest, making sketching trips throughout New Jersey and Long Island.
In 1910, the year he “kicked the building business over,”
he met Alfred Stieglitz, who sparked his interest in
the artistic innovations of the European & American
avant-garde.
Bluemner painted his first oil in 1911.
“Bluemner left off designing buildings to be constructed in the real world, but man-made structures remained a dominant theme in the striking modernist paintings that occupied him for his last decades.
For the last quarter century of his life Bluemner devoted himself to painting, utilizing architectural elements as vital components of a new pictorial language...[and] as a painter Bluemner demonstrated his background in architecture again and again. Accustomed to developing architectural projects through multiple plans and studies, he followed the same technique in evolving each major painting, creating numerous preliminary versions in both black and white and color. Many of his works still show evidence of the grids he utilized to transfer an image from one scale or medium to another.” Roberta Favis Smith, 2016
In 1912 Bluemner sailed for Europe, where he had a one-man show of landscapes at the Gurlitt Galleries in Berlin.
After Berlin, he traveled to Paris and Italy where he saw the work of Matisse, Cézanne, and the Futurists, and created thousands of sketches inspired by the museums he visited.
Stopping over in England, Bluemner toured Roger Fry’s Post-Impressionist exhibition at Grafton Galleries and became fully committed to the modernist ideology."
LOOK AT THESE Architectural drawings he completed!
www.handartcenter.org/my-finest-design
A painter from the early 1900’s I’d not been aware of before:: Oscar Bluemner
"The son and grandson of architects, Bluemner was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1867, and was encouraged to follow in his family’s trade.
He showed early promise as an artist as well, and his first one-man show of portraits was held at the Berlin Latin School in 1886. In 1892 he won a medal at the Royal Academy of Design in Berlin where he studied painting and architecture. Dissatisfied with the restrictive aesthetic policies of Emperor Wilhelm II’s government, Bluemner left for America that same year.
Bluemner arrived in New York, then moved on to Chicago
in 1893, hoping to gain architectural commissions at the World’s Columbian Exposition.
He designed prefabricated units for the Exposition and freelanced as a draftsman.
(I wonder if he encountered Adler and Louis Sullivan at that time!?)
He returned to New York in 1901, and the following year he won a commission for the Bronx Borough Courthouse that his partner finagled away using Bluemner’s design.
Although Bluemner sued and eventually won the lawsuit,
the experience permanently turned him away from architecture.
Between 1908 and 1910, Bluemner began painting in earnest, making sketching trips throughout New Jersey and Long Island.
In 1910, the year he “kicked the building business over,”
he met Alfred Stieglitz, who sparked his interest in
the artistic innovations of the European & American
avant-garde.
Bluemner painted his first oil in 1911.
“Bluemner left off designing buildings to be constructed in the real world, but man-made structures remained a dominant theme in the striking modernist paintings that occupied him for his last decades.
For the last quarter century of his life Bluemner devoted himself to painting, utilizing architectural elements as vital components of a new pictorial language...[and] as a painter Bluemner demonstrated his background in architecture again and again. Accustomed to developing architectural projects through multiple plans and studies, he followed the same technique in evolving each major painting, creating numerous preliminary versions in both black and white and color. Many of his works still show evidence of the grids he utilized to transfer an image from one scale or medium to another.” Roberta Favis Smith, 2016
In 1912 Bluemner sailed for Europe, where he had a one-man show of landscapes at the Gurlitt Galleries in Berlin.
After Berlin, he traveled to Paris and Italy where he saw the work of Matisse, Cézanne, and the Futurists, and created thousands of sketches inspired by the museums he visited.
Stopping over in England, Bluemner toured Roger Fry’s Post-Impressionist exhibition at Grafton Galleries and became fully committed to the modernist ideology."
LOOK AT THESE Architectural drawings he completed!
www.handartcenter.org/my-finest-design